


the view from halfway down

by decinq



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Choking, D/s themes, Depression, Infidelity, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Post-IT Chapter Two (2019), Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-23
Updated: 2020-10-23
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:15:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27157820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/decinq/pseuds/decinq
Summary: Richie wants to close his eyes, but no matter what he does, he can still see what he saw in the deadlights. Eddie’s blood. Richie’s fault. A lack of time and of everything else in the universe, too, but lacking fairness more than anything else, an abundance of cruelty ripped through their lives.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 22
Kudos: 147





	the view from halfway down

**Author's Note:**

> i actually originally planned to post this in chapters, but realized it made no sense, so i deleted the original posting with the first chapter, and now its way more cohesive (i think), so sorry if you've already read the first 5k of this! i have worms in my brain! 
> 
> i have put a full list of warnings in the end notes, but please note all of the tags. if anything there makes you slighly nervous, i suggest reading for more detail at the bottom. 
> 
> thank you to megan, dana, quinn and jacobi for reading over this, for making it and me better.

** longing is a room built entirely of knives **   
\-  leslie harrison, 'sirens', _the book of endings  
_  
 **life is a series of closing doors, isn't it?** _  
-_ bojack horseman _, horse majeur_

Richie’s unsure of what people see when they look at him. He questions every choice he makes, second-guesses every interaction he’s a part of, and regrets every word he’s ever said. If he’s alone, he flinches when people look in his direction. 

It’s a humiliating thing, actually, being so desperate for laughs. Every night, he goes on a stage and introduces his misery to a whole lot of company, and then he begs for their love. 

But it’s the not-knowing that’s the scariest part, because it means he’s lacking. And it’s the shit he lacks that he’d do anything for. He thinks he’s missing so much that it’s no wonder he feels so separated from normal people - everyone else has an answer to a question he can’t think to ask. He's playing a game where everyone knows the rules but him. He’s on earth but not a part of the world, and he’d give up anything to know how to fix it.

And so he needs to know what people think of him to know who to be. And to find out what people think, he needs to perform.

He’s just not really sure what he’s performing, anymore. 

Richie has pretty thin skin, which either comes as a surprise to every motherfucker he’s ever met or to none of them. Either way, when he looks at his life, he knows he’s up shit’s creek with nothing to sneeze at. Rich as fuck and successful to boot; not only lonely but, actually, utterly alone. 

With his face pressed against the glass of Mike’s truck’s passenger seat window, he thinks: What does Eddie think of me?

He keeps remembering more and more, now that the clown’s dead. And he doesn’t know what stays forgotten because evil took it from him, or if it’s just a normal kind of forgetting, that comes with space and age and so much time away. 

They drive over the kissing bridge, and Richie lifts his feet until they reach the road on the other side. He’s not sure when he last went down to the river. He wonders: What is Eddie thinking about? 

He’s thinking about something, although maybe not the same Something Richie is thinking of. Richie can’t make out the shape of it, knows it’s there in the corner of his mind even if he can’t pull it up clearly. The existence of forgetting has never been proved - all we know is some things don’t come to mind when we call them.

Richie’s chosen to distance himself from people and things enough that he knows the whole truth about memory: Every day the people who love you learn to love you a little less. 

They all had to get tetanus shots, which pleased Eddie to no fucking end. Richie raises his left hand to rub at his right arm. The muscle there feels cold, stiff. The same way his fingers feel if his weed is too high in THC. Bad circulation or some other condition that makes him act like a fucking pussy. 

He’s so fucking tired. 

He only half pays attention to whatever the fuck Eddie and Bev are talking about as he slides out of Mike’s truck and drags his body into the Townhouse and up the stairs towards his room, and he stops paying attention altogether once he says, “I’m going to shower,” to no one in particular. 

He’s not sure he’s ever been happier to undress. It’s even better than the first time he undressed with someone in a sexy way. He’s not sure he’s ever smelled worse. He catches himself before he wonders what you smell like when you’re born, stops the thought, realizes the answer is definitely not ‘good.’

He’s not sure if he’s got water in his ears, or if it’s really this quiet. Either that or his brain has taken in so much stimulus on so little sleep that it’s just given up one of the five senses. Richie’s already mostly blind. 

He pulls open the shower curtain and turns the tap as hot as it will go, then just a bit towards cold when he burns his fingers testing it. He can feel his heartbeat in his face and in his ears and in his throat. He feels really far away from himself. 

Eddie’s bathroom is a crime scene, probably. He must be scared, going in there after getting fucking stabbed. Richie would be scared. He wonders whose room Eddie’s showering in. If he got another room. If any employees for this place even exists. What if the Derry Townhouse only exists in Richie’s memory, and this is really a Super8 they’ve been trashing for fifty-six straight hours?

He showers for a long time, longer than when he was first learning that he could jerk off, and sometimes did it more than once in a single shower. His poor fucking mother. He should call her. His back hurts, but the bruises already look old - like they’ve been there for days rather than hours. 

There isn’t a way to get to the future from here, except to let time’s arrow march forward, so Richie steps out of the shower eventually, towels himself off, brushes his teeth for longer than he has in years. He’s going to order a WaterPik when he gets home. 

Once he’s changed into a pair of boxers and a black t-shirt directly from a Costco 5-pack, he’s at a loss for what to do. His glasses are cracked. He doesn’t have a phone anymore. He’ll have to go to a Verizon store. Derry must have one. It’s a nice excuse to upgrade his iPhone. He’s contemplating putting on a pair of socks when there are three quick knocks at his door, followed by an “It’s me,” from Eddie through the door. 

Richie opens the door to let him into the room. He’s showered, which is a relief, and he’s alive, which is something else. Richie wants to close his eyes, but no matter what he does, he can still see what he saw in the deadlights. Eddie’s blood. Richie’s fault. A lack of time and of everything else in the universe, too, but lacking fairness more than anything else, an abundance of cruelty ripped through their lives. 

Eddie’s talking about the cops; he’s talked to them already, apparently, Eddie’s meeting them at the station tomorrow. Apparently, it isn’t a big rush to see the room where a murdered murderer attacked Eddie. Richie wants to scream. 

“And then I have to get a new phone.”

“We all do,” Richie says because it’s something to say. 

Eddie, for some reason, crosses his arms, like he’s arguing with Richie on something that’s clearly way over Richie’s head. “Yeah, but I need to call Myra”

“Why?”

“To tell her that I’m alive? Make sure she hasn’t called in a missing person’s report.”

Richie rolls his eyes, deciding to burn the Maybe You Can Like Eddie’s Wife bridge before he even gets to it.

“Show’s not over til she sings, or what?”

“Fuck you, Richie. Don’t.”

“Why?”

“What the fuck is wrong with you? She’s my wife.”

“So?”

“You don’t even know her.”

“I don’t fucking care. Fuck her.”

“Richie, stop.”

“You’re the one who came into my room. You stop.”

“You’re a fucking child,” Eddie says. 

“What's your fuckin’ problem, Eddie? What do you want?” He shoves past him, towards the other side of the room. Not with any reason other than moving means Richie doesn’t need to look at Eddie and feel the way he feels at the same time.

He can hear Eddie breathe in, then out. Richie looks at him, and watches as the fight falls out of him. “To talk to you,” Eddie says. 

Richie blinks first. He sits on the foot of the bed, looks at his bare feet. Curls his toes into the carpet. “I’m tired.”

”What’s that supposed to mean?”

Richie sighs and looks up at Eddie, standing in front of him. “It doesn’t mean anything.”

“I showered in Bev’s room,” Eddie says. 

Eddie moves on like he used to do when they were kids, in Richie’s memory. Fired up one second and over it the next. Always forgiving Richie for being a fucking asshole before Richie had the chance to learn from his mistakes. 

“Okay,” Richie says.

“Are you okay?” Eddie asks, and Richie blinks. Shrugs. Eddie watches him. “Can I sleep in here?” 

“Okay,” Richie says. He only has the one bed. He knows Eddie knows this. He knows Eddie knows he knows Eddie knows. Richie picks at the scab in his mind, knows the dam is only barely holding together. If Eddie comes closer, he’s sure the whole dam will breach. If he stays where he is, Richie might die. His fingers itch. He blinks again. 

“Seriously, though, are you okay?” Eddie asks, and steps closer to Richie. Richie closes his eyes. Shakes his head, no. Fucking Nietzche. What doesn’t kill you keeps you up at night. What doesn’t kill you costs thousands in therapy. What doesn’t kill you twists up all your wires, and you’ll never work quite right again.

“Does it hurt?” Eddie asks, and Richie thinks: God. What doesn’t? His breath shakes out of him through his nose, and Eddie says, “Where?” He steps into the space in front of Richie, and their knees touch. Richie resists the urge to shift back, away. 

Richie puts his hand on the top of his sternum, his index finger at the collar of his Kirkland brand black t-shirt. Holds his breath. Eddie puts his hand next to Richie’s, his index finger and thumb pressing into opposite sides of his collarbones. Richie inhales, and his chest rises. He opens his eyes. Exhales. Falls. He blinks once and meets Eddie’s eye. He imagines Eddie cocking an eyebrow, but he doesn’t actually do it. He just looks at Richie. Richie moves his right hand from his chest to wrap his fingers around Eddie’s wrist. He circles it, but doesn’t squeeze. 

When Eddie speaks, his voice catches. Rasps. “What do you need?” He asks. 

Richie uses his grip on Eddie’s wrist to tug his hand higher. Eddie moves with him, letting himself be moved, until Eddie's thumb and fingers rest against Richie’s throat, just under his Adam’s apple. There’s no pressure on his windpipe. It’s a barely-there kind of thing. Like a gust of wind. An egg cracked on top of your head, trickling down. Doesn’t it feel real? Richie swallows. Eddie doesn’t blink for a long stretch, then four times in quick succession. 

“I won’t hurt you,” he says, throat tight, and Richie doesn’t know if that means yes or no. 

“You won’t,” he says and doesn’t move. He looks down at Eddie’s wrist, can’t see his hand. Then looks back at Eddie above him, in front of him, in real life with his hand touching Richie’s skin. 

There are a million things to remember all at once, but this isn’t one of them, this is something else, something Richie hasn’t done before, a place he’s never been. Eddie’s fingers are lightly callused, probably from free weights. Richie’s fingers around his wrist tighten, and he feels the tendons move and shift. 

Eddie’s hand moves from the front of Richie’s throat back until his fingers move into his hair and against his scalp. Richie closes his eyes. His hand moves to Eddie’s elbow. He steps further into Richie’s space, his knees pressing against the bed, Richie’s legs spread to accommodate him. 

Eddie presses his thumb into the muscle of Richie’s neck, and Richie lets out a humiliating groan. His grip tightens at the back of Richie’s head, and he whispers, stern and soft all at the same time, “Look at me.” 

Richie’s eyes open and he inhales, a sharp intake. “I won’t hurt you,” Eddie says again. His other hand comes to cup the side of Richie’s face, and Richie wants to cry. “But it’s okay,” he says, strokes his thumb up and back down Richie’s cheek bone. “You did really good. And you’re okay.”

Richie closes his eyes, and Eddie tugs on his hair, gentle but there, the sting almost a relief against everything else swirling in Richie’s chest. Richie’s other hand grasps at Eddie’s t-shirt, knuckles pressing into Eddie’s ribs. When Richie looks at Eddie, he’s staring right back. 

Richie’s doesn’t know how to read him anymore. He knows he used to know how, and he knows he can’t do it anymore. He doesn’t know how to get that back. It’ll be like getting to know each other all over again. Eddie’s basically a brand new person. Richie feels exactly the same as he did when he waved goodbye to Eddie from the back of his parent’s car, the day they moved away. Richie remembers thinking: remember him, remember him, remember him.

Eddie’s thumb drags down Richie’s cheekbone, back to trace over and behind Richie’s ear, stops against his pulse point, a slight pressure. Richie’s blood reaches for Eddie through his skin. Eddie’s thumb moves along Richie’s jawline, stops center at his chin. Eddie’s eyes seem to ask, so Richie tilts his chin, the world’s smallest nod. Eddie presses his thumb into Richie’s mouth, presses down on his tongue, and Richie groans, Eddie's knuckle pressed against Richie’s teeth. Richie moans deep in his throat, swirls his tongue around Eddie’s thumb, sucks it into his mouth. 

“Jesus,” Eddie says. Richie leans his head back into Eddie’s hand. Amazingly, no matter how tired, how hungry, how traumatized, Richie’s dick is still working. It’s enough to make Richie believe in God. Eddie hums, an affirmative noise, and tightens his grip in Richie’s hair. His dick goes from interested to ready. Richie lifts his chin so he can look at Eddie, eyes trail down his body to where he’s hard in his plaid pattern pyjama pants. Obvious. His cock thickening right there, where Richie can see. Richie sucks on his thumb harder. “Richie.”

Richie pulls away from Eddie, his thumb falling from Richie’s move, Eddie letting him move easily. He says, desperate, “Please,” his voice hoarse. The hand on Eddie’s elbow moves towards Eddie’s core, his hands hovering at the waistband of Eddie pyjama pants. He looks up at Eddie through his eyelashes, and says again, “Please, Eddie,” and Eddie nods.

“Yeah,” he says, and Richie scrambles forward, tugs at Eddie’s pyjamas until he’s pulled them down at the front, waistband around Eddie’s hips, his cock full in front of Richie, his balls tight. Richie presses a hand to the small of Eddie’s back, pulls him in, his other hand reaching out to wrap around Eddie’s dick. Unlike Richie, he’s not circumcised, and Richie groans as he pumps his fist from the root of Eddie to the tip, and then follows it with his mouth. 

He circles his tongue around the head of Eddie’s cock, tongues the slit, and takes him further into his mouth. He doesn’t taste or smell like anything, really. Soap. Sweat. A body. Laundry detergent, a bit. Once Richie has him fully in his mouth, the tip of Eddie's cock at the back of his throat, he breathes once through his nose, relaxes. The angle is weird, the bed just a bit too high, Richie a bit too tall, Eddie just a bit too short, Richie’s neck and back bent awkwardly. Richie presses his hand into Eddie’s back and hums, and starts to move. Eddie drags his fingernails along Richie’s scalp, and slowly, surely, his arm and hand start to shift with Richie as he moves his head, his mouth along Eddie’s length. 

It’s not Richie’s best work, blowjob wise. It’s sloppy. Needy. He speeds up, which Eddie seems to like, and he moans around Eddie until Eddie is less reserved, maybe less self-conscious, less something, as he starts to fuck into Richie’s mouth, and that’s what Richie wanted. To feel it all. For Eddie to consume him, to consume Eddie right back. To fucking choke on it. For it to be the only thing. 

Richie’s own cock aches between his legs, and when Eddie’s second hand moves to the back of Richie’s head, gripping into his hair with both hands, Richie has to reach down and press the heel of his hand against himself, just for something. Eddie must see him do it, because he starts talking, “Fuck, Richie.” His thumb pressing into Richie’s neck, “Oh my god,” a loss of rhythm. Richie gags slightly, his eyes stinging, and he moans into it, breathing in through his nose. “You’re so good,” Eddie says, and, “Richie, honey, I- ” and then, “stop.” He pulls back, panting, and Richie matches him. 

Richie wonders how loud they are. It feels like the world doesn’t exist anymore. Everything in time and space exists in this shitty little room. Can the Losers hear them? Does Eddie care? What would happen if someone came in? 

He can only imagine what he looks like. Lips swollen, spit and precum on his chin, cheeks red, hair fucked beyond belief. His skin tingles under Eddie’s gaze. 

“I don’t want to come yet,” Eddie says, and then reaches for Richie. He gets Richie to raise his arms, and lifts his shirt above his head. “Scoot back,” he says, and Richie does, pulls his weight back and shifts up the bed until he’s on his back, his head on the pillows. 

Eddie steps out of his pants, pulls off his own shirt and settles with his knees on the bed, open and brave and so fucking sexy, Richie wants to pinch himself. Instead, he reaches for Eddie’s hand, tugs him, and Eddie maneuvers his hands to the waistband of Richie’s sweatpants. Slips his fingers inside the elastic at his sides. Says, “Lift up,” so he can take them off Richie. When he settles above Richie, he hovers above him, their bodies not touching. Richie wants to squirm. Doesn’t. 

With the arm not propping up his weight, Eddie traces his hand down the side of Richie’s ribs, down to his hip, splays his hand wide across Richie’s thigh. “You’re quiet.”

Richie clears his throat. “Sorry,” he says. 

“Don’t be,” Eddie says. “You don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to.”

“Okay,” Richie says. Eddie presses his thumb along the band of Richie’s hip flexor. It almost hurts. 

“But you have to tell me to stop if you want to stop. You have to promise.”

“Promise,” he says, his throat suddenly tight. Can’t remember the last time he promised anyone anything. Eddie wraps his hand around Richie’s dick, and Richie’s whole body jolts, then stiffens. 

“Don’t do that,” Eddie says. “Don’t hide. Show me.”

Richie closes his eyes as Eddie’s hand starts to move in earnest. He strokes down Richie’s cock, leaking enough that Richie almost can’t believe it, like he’s fourteen again. He grips one hand into the sheets beside him, his other finds Eddie’s hand above his head, where his elbow is propping him up above Richie. Eddie does a move with his thumb, pressed into the underside of the head, and Richie gasps. Eddie brings his hand up and spits into it, and Richie’s stomach knots. 

Richie’s had sex. He’s gone through phases. Times in his life when he had bad sex constantly and phases where he has okay sex sometimes and pretty good sex a few times, almost always by accident. Richie’s never had sex like this, like he fits in his body and his body fits with someone else’s. It’s not even that good of a hand job, but he’s shaking out of his skin from it, shifting, desperate for something, desperate to get his hands on Eddie again, desperate to taste him, to disappear into him. 

Something must show on his face, because Eddie quickly presses his mouth to Richie’s, almost a kiss but not really, just pressure, no technique until there’s a nip of his teeth against Richie’s lip, then his tongue, his lips moving against Richie’s until it’s softer, smoother. Richie opens his mouth to him, and Eddie tongues into Richie’s mouth, sloppy, and just better than anything else Richie’s ever been a part of. He’s close, and as he thrusts into Eddie’s fists, he thinks: I hope we get to do this again. 

Richie says, “Eddie,” and Eddie, the asshole, stops. Richie groans, tries to fuck up into Eddie’s hand, so Eddie squeezes him tight at the base of his cock and then leaves his hand there, barely touching, not moving. 

“Don’t come without me,” Eddie says, and Richie has to breathe in deep. He shutters on the exhale, then nods. His eyes sting. His balls are so tight. Twenty-seven years of blue balls. “You wait for me, okay, honey? You’re so good, Rich.”

“Fuck," Richie says, almost a sob, and Eddie kisses him again. “I want to touch you,” he breathes into Eddie’s neck. 

“So do it,” he says. Richie readjusts slightly, slides his back down further and angles Eddie so their cocks brush, then line up together, and Richie’s hands are big enough to take them both in his right hand. His fingers of his left hand dig into Eddie’s hip. Eddie has one hand on the bed beside Richie’s head, and Richie twists to press a kiss to his wrist. Just one. Small and sweet and over in a second. He twists his hands over their cocks, thumb over Eddie’s tip, Richie’s precome and Eddie’s precome making it easier and easier the closer they get. Eddie’s other hand cups the side of Richie’s face, until he slides it down, and Richie gasps, moves his hand faster over them as Eddie’s hand settles over his throat again, his fingers and thumb on either side of his windpipe. Richie wonders if Eddie’s done this before. Did he google how to do it properly? Without hurting anyone? Richie has, but if he were under oath he’d say it was for a bit. He wonders: What does Eddie think of this? 

The pressure Eddie applies is slight, barely there, careful. There’s risk involved. Richie trusts him, here and everywhere else - even when he didn’t remember Eddie, he trusted him. His fingers tighten but Richie can still breathe in through his nose. Eddie fucks into Richie’s fist, faster. 

Richie says, “Please,” and Eddie’s grip tightens, Richie moans, and Eddie presses another kiss to Richie’s lips, his tongue in his mouth, domineering but not suffocating, and it’s so good Richie forgets all the other bullshit and inhales Eddie, feels all the places they’re touching, pressed together, sweaty and moaning and embarrassing. Eddie pulls away to pant into the side of Richie’s cheek, and Richie thrusts up into his own fist. Eddie brushes his thumb over Richie’s Adam’s apple as Richie loses his rhythm, his cock dragging against Eddie’s in desperate movements, and Eddie whispers into his ear, “It’s ok, baby. We’re okay,” and Richie comes into his fist only a few thrusts before Eddie is spilling over Richie’s fingers and onto his stomach with a loud groan. 

Eddie knees back on his heels, his thighs taut, breathing heavily. “Christ,” he says, and when Richie opens one eye to look at him, he’s smiling softly. He almost looks bashful. Richie has no idea what that means. 

Richie stretches, long like a cat, and says, “Yeah.” 

“Are you okay?” Eddie asks, with his cock out, softening, like he doesn’t have any shame. 

Richie throws an arm over his eyes and nods. He clears his throat and says, “Yes.” 

“I’ll be right back,” Eddie says, and for some reason, that’s the thing that makes tears actually well in Richie’s eyes. He blinks as a few escape, wipes them away before Eddie comes back. He says, “Here,” and tosses a damp face cloth at Richie. 

Richie wipes himself off without changing his position, then tosses the cloth towards the bathroom. He tugs his boxers back up when Eddie steps back into his pyjama bottoms. Richie wonders if Eddie normally wears it with a matching shirt, or if he does this, where he wears a t-shirt. Maybe he sleeps naked, usually. 

Eddie maneuvers Richie around so he can get them both under the top sheet and the duvet. It’s weird for a few moments, and Richie stares up at the ceiling thinking that there has to be a joke in walking uphill both ways to get to where he’s going, and Sisyphus. Eddie Kaspbrak is the hill Richie will die on. He knows it now. Beside him, Eddie huffs. “Now that I’ve touched you, I don’t want to stop.”

“Fine,” Richie says, desperate, a deserted man without water stepping into a flood. “But I’m big spoon.”

Eddie shifts onto his side, and Richie copies him, shuffles closer to Eddie’s back. Tucks his hand, slowly, lightly, against Eddie’s side. Eddie takes Richie’s hand in his own, holds it against his chest, and Richie thinks: I will be in love with him forever. And then they fall asleep. 

Because there are, of course, inevitably, parts of their life that don’t wrap around each other, Richie wakes up in bed alone. He can hear Eddie’s voice out in the hall outside the room - thin walls. He wonders if Ben stayed in Bev’s room last night. Hopes for everyone’s sake he did, and they didn’t share a wall. He looks for his phone, remembers it’s under the rubble at Neibolt. Feels around for his glasses until he remembers they’re cracked. Sighs. Falls back into bed. 

Eddie comes into the room a few minutes later, talking into Mike’s phone - the only asshole smart enough to not bring his own with him to swim in the sewers. The others must be downstairs. Or around. Richie should get up. Eddie says, “Well, I’ll explain when I’m home,” and Richie wants to die. He sits up, swings his legs over the side of the bed. He rubs his hands through his hair before pressing the heels of his hands into his eye until he sees red, black, white. Eddie finishes up his call, his voice clipped, and Richie looks up to look at him. 

He’s wearing regular clothes, which freaks Richie out a bit. What the fuck do you wear after you kill a demon clown alien and then fuck your friend? Richie doesn’t have a good shirt for the occasion. 

“You all good?” He asks.

“I didn’t mean to wake you,” Eddie says, and Richie shrugs. “Listen-” he starts, as Richie says, “It’s oka-” 

Richie smiles a tight, close-lipped smile. “You go first,” he says. “Also good morning.”

That makes Eddie smile, at least. “I’m really sorry,” Eddie says, and Richie wonders what for. 

“Why?”

“I have to leave,” he says, and Richie thinks: Right. 

“I don’t want to,” he says, fast, motor mouth. “I really - I just. I have to. I don’t want you to think -”

“It’s okay,” Richie says, and thinks: Fuck. 

“Rich,” Eddie says, and Richie doesn’t know what that means. He feels exhausted. He’s hungry. He wants to cry. He wants Eddie to hug him. Wants Eddie to make room for Richie to move inside his skin so he can live there. 

“I promise,” Richie says, and because there are actually very few places where their lives wrap around each other, Eddie goes. 

Richie’s skin itches, and he thinks about Eddie’s voice saying, “Richie,” before hitching his breath, and the weight of Eddie’s cock in his mouth, and Eddie’s hand in his, and he bites his lip so hard it bleeds.

And because Richie fucking killed a guy, he knows he isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, and so he goes back to bed.

_  
  
  
_

Turns out that the police force in Derry is as fucked up and lazy as it's ever been. Richie spends all of four hours in the Derry County Sheriff Police’s tiny little station. Barely ten desks. A small kitchenette with a table for four, an old Keurig machine. Someone’s taped one of those shooting targets to the wall in the back where all the shots land at the outline’s crotch. It’s all really inspiring. Richie’s never been happier to have left Derry when he did. 

They take his fingerprints and all his personal information and he says, on the record, “I do not require a lawyer present,” even though he knows Steve would kill him on the spot if he heard that come from Richie’s mouth. But Steve didn’t grow up here. Defensiveness isn’t seen as a method of protection from harm in Derry. It means you have something to hide. It makes you a target. 

He tells them a short version: I was in town to meet up with a few friends from high school. We haven’t seen each other in years. Yeah, I missed the reunion - I was on tour. No, I didn’t graduate from Derry High - that’s why Wikipedia says Chicago, but I grew up here. I was here with my friend Eddie - yeah, he was here this morning I think. Yeah, he had to get home to the missus. Ha-ha, yeah, you know how it is. Yeah, and our friend Bill. Visiting Mike Hanlon. Yes, the librarian. Anyway, you know Eddie got attacked in his hotel room. I wasn’t there for that. I went to see if the old arcade in the Aladdin was still there. Was sorry it was closed. I loved that place as a kid. So Eddie went to the clinic and got some stitches, and we all decided to meet at Mike’s after - we were going to have dinner. He lives above the library, so we decided to meet down there. When I got there, someone was attacking Mike, I saw he had a weapon. I just did what I thought I needed to do: stop him from hurting my friend. Then I saw it was Henry Bowers, I recognized him. He used to torment us before he was locked up for killing all those kids. Yeah, and his dad. Awful. I grabbed the first thing I saw, some library display piece. I hit him with it, thinking it would knock him out. I didn’t mean to do anything else, but. He died. I threw up. That’s kind of it. 

He speaks into the little microphone they use to record his statement, a small handheld camera films him the whole time. They make him write it all down anyway. 

Then they explain what they think happened: Bowers escaped. Killed some more people. Bad timing for the boys to be back in town. They’re glad no one else was hurt. No charges will be laid against him at this time, but could he sign some autographs and take some photos with some of the squad? 

So the next thing Richie gets to deal with in therapy is literally getting away with murder. 

There are things in life that are just true. Richie knows how it works. There’s relativity and then there’s absolutism. Some things are facts. Not opinions, which Richie knows can be wrong, but whole, undeniable, universal truths. Tomato plants won’t grow in the shade. Ivy needs something to cling to. Broken clocks, twice a day. And now: Richie killed someone. 

He leaves the station and gets out to his rental car without incident, but has to pull over once he’s driven out of view of the station, opens his door and vomits. He thinks: I am a murderer. He thinks: This would probably make a pretty good bit. 

Guilt is funny. Complicated. He wishes he hadn’t needed to do it, hates that he had to. But he doesn’t feel guilty the way he expected he would. People are capable of pretty much anything, when necessary. Apply enough pressure, and most things will eventually give. 

He buys a phone, because he’s not sure if he exists if other people aren’t there to actualize him. By the time he gets back to the Townhouse, it’s well after lunch. Almost dinner. He finds Bev and Mike sitting at the Townhouse’s small bar. The place is still totally empty. Bev is near tears and asks Mike, “I can come with you, can’t I?” as Richie walks into the room. “Just for a bit?”

Richie goes behind the bar and grabs a bottle of bourbon. It’s only two thirds full. He wonders who could have had the first third, if no one works here and no one else is staying here. “How was the station?” Mike asks. 

“They aren’t pressing charges. I don’t think they’ll contact you,” Richie says, in lieu of everything else. He knows why Mike is nervous, knows that Mike knows Richie is thinking about it, too. He pours four fingers worth into a tumbler. 

Mike nods. “That’s good. Are you okay?”

“Are any of us?” Richie asks, and upends his drink. Bev laughs, harsh. He doesn’t know how to read her anymore, either. Richie has missed her so much. The only woman who ever told him to shut the fuck up but didn’t hold it against him when he couldn’t. He pours another too-full glass. Bottoms up and the devil laughs. He says, “I’m going to lay down. If you decide on dinner, come get me.”

It takes a while for him to relax, for the alcohol to work into his blood, but the feeling in his lips goes first, and at least an hour passes where he stares at the wall, thinking nothing, completely outside of himself. Eventually, a small knock, nothing like Eddie’s the night before. Eddie, who has to be back in New York by now. Back with his wife. Richie’s stomach knots. He says, “What?”

Bev opens the door and peeks her head into his room. “We’re gonna order some pizzas,” she says. “So far we have a meat lovers, some chicken pesto shit that Bill wants, and a veggie concoction that Mike made up. Did you know he’s a vegetarian?” She leans against the door frame, her arms loosely crossed. 

“I’ll eat the veggies with Mike. But no olives.”

“Good to know you still have taste, Toze.” Richie looks away from her - wants to flinch under her gaze but knows she’ll notice if he does. Instead, he looks at the wall behind her. He needs to replace his glasses. He has a spare at home. He can’t see anything. He should leave sooner than later. He’s in trouble with Steve. “Are you okay?” She asks. 

He’s a bit drunk. He should be worse, actually. He doesn’t feel anything. He wishes he did. Would do anything to know what it feels like to be somebody else. 

“I slept with Eddie,” he says, instead, and actually looks at her. Watches for her reaction. 

She almost doesn’t have one. Almost. She blinks, expressionless, but then she looks away, and Richie wishes he was dead for just a split second. “Are you okay?” She asks again, but this time, her voice is full of... something. Richie guesses it’s probably pity. 

“I’m tired,” he says, instead of all the other million things he could say. Do you think he could ever love me? Could you tell, about me, back then? I think I’m going to disappear once I leave here. How do you know that this is real? How could any of this happen? How come he happened to me? “Are you?”

“Oh, you know,” she shrugs, smiles. “Absolutely not even a little bit.” 

“What are you going to do?” He asks.

“Well, I’m not going to fuck Eddie about it, that’s for sure.”

“Why not? He’s in New York. Isn’t that where you live?”

“What are you going to do about it?” She was always so good at ignoring him. He always thought she was so tired of him. 

“Go home, I guess.” He deflates. “If you need somewhere to stay - I mean if you don’t want to stay with Mike the whole time-”

“I know,” she says, and actually smiles at him. She really is beautiful. She always was, but really. She grew into herself. He hopes they actually get the chance to get to know each other again. “Thank you.”

“Yeah,” he says. He sits up, cracks his neck. “It’s not a problem, Bevvy. Let’s go order this pizza. Want me to do a Voice on the phone?” He gets to his feet, a herculean effort. He grabs the bourbon. If he stops now, he’ll have a hangover before 9pm. 

“You know it’s not cool to harass small business owners, right?” She laughs as she says it, knocks their shoulders together as they leave his room and head downstairs. 

_  
  
  
_

His flight home is easy because he takes a Valium before the security checkpoint and then orders a double Bowmore at the bar by his gate. He wakes up with a dry mouth, nauseous and groggy. Falls asleep in the Uber home and dreams that he loses his limbs, one at a time, as they turn to dust and fall away. 

His apartment is the same way he left it. The fridge was mostly empty because he was planning to be in Reno. No groceries. 

Richie has a lot of bad habits. He started cracking his knuckles when he was fifteen and hasn’t stopped since. He knows it annoys people and he knows it’s bad for him, but it feels good, an itch he can scratch without making himself bleed. He spends four straight days smoking weed and ordering one meal on Postmates every day at four-thirty. On day five, he gets a text from a 212 area code. He doesn’t open it but he does get up to shower. Little victories.

In the shower, he lathers shampoo into his hair and remembers the way Eddie’s fingers tugged.

The way the skin of his scalp felt. Tingled. He presses his thumbs into his temples and his dick thickens. He remembers the way his mouth felt against Eddie's. Thinks about how Eddie's voice didn't tremble at all when he whispered into Richie's neck. He keeps his eyes closed as he rinses his hair. His conditioner smells like lemon and coconut. Eddie had smelled like vanilla. Was that his shampoo? Bev's? Did Eddie always smell like vanilla, or did that exist in a space and a time that no one else witnessed, and that they never would? Richie wraps his fingers around himself, squeezes tight at the base of his dick. Bites his own lip. Remembers Eddie's shoulders, covered in freckles even still. Pumps his fist over himself.

What will happen when Richie sees Eddie again? Because it is _when_ , not _if_. Will Eddie be weird? Will Richie? Will he bring it up again, even though he regrets it? Will he ever let Richie be alone with him again? What will his cheek look like, when it's healed? How does he feel, about all of this? How is he sleeping? What does he look like when he wakes up in the morning? Richie had missed that one, as Eddie got out of bed and slipped back into his real life and away from Richie's memory and away from all the things he imagined for them.

Richie used to imagine any number of things about their future. What if they ran away? What if Richie's parents let Eddie live in their basement to escape his mom? What if they moved to Boston and worked in a bar and lived together in a shitty brick-walled studio apartment? What if Eddie loved him back and they had been together until Obergefell v. Hodges? What if they'd been married? What if Richie wasn't three thousand miles away from Eddie?

Now, he doesn't have to imagine all of it. As he moves his hand over himself, he can answer some of his own questions. What would Eddie sound like? What would he kiss like? What will he be like when you touch him? What will he taste like? How does it feel to be touched by Eddie?

He finishes, and the relief barely lasts. He remembers the clarity of how it felt, being with Eddie. The moment, before his orgasm, that it really hit him. Sex with Eddie Kaspbrak. It's so unfair, he thinks. That the implications of a moment can't be seen before time's arrow marches on, through it. The way the future and the present melt into each other, and eventually become the past. It's hurting him, that he didn't know what it would be like once he’d actually done it. The time Before was so clear - and now that it's gone and After is settling in, he wishes he hadn't done it at all. He towels himself dry and thinks: I made a mistake.

Not all locked chests contain treasures. Shroedinger’s cat is dead half the time. Sometimes you just shouldn’t push, even if you think the suspense will kill you. There’s nothing as sweet as not knowing. If only it weren’t so easy to mistake wonder for wanting, to confuse curiosity for reaching. How stupid, to think desire meant he had to take action. It's not until after you've jumped that you get to see the view from halfway down.

If only he had known. Knowing what it was like to have Eddie --only once and never again-- is actually worse than never knowing. He knows people say it's better to loved and lost than never love at all, but Richie thinks that's stupid. He'd rather not. It doesn't matter what he does now - the damage is already done. 

Three extra strength Advils and a big cup of coffee, and Richie still feels like shit all day long.

He spends a few hours watching Jeopardy on Netflix. After the third episode, he smokes a joint and still gets more answers right than not, so he smokes another, then checks his phone.

_  
  
_

_(212) 735-0307_

_Mike says you got home on Thursday._

_maybe so...._

It takes a few minutes, but the little iphone bubbles pop up. Typing.

(212) 735-0307

Oh, what, you're so fancy it takes you nearly 12 hours to answer a text?

i was watching jeopardy

(212) 735-0307

For twelve hours?

give or take

(212) 735-0307

It's Eddie by the way.

i know dude. manhattan area code

(212) 735-0307

I could have been anyone. You shouldn't assume.

fine. send me a picture of your dick so i know its you

(212) 735-0307

You're a celebrity, you shouldn't ask for nudes. What if you get hacked?

it'll be ur dick that gets sold to tmz

(212) 735-0307

You expect me to believe that you, Richard Wentworth Tozier, don't have a picture of your own penis on your phone? Really?

i should be offended by that

(212) 735-0307

But?

hmmm just don't care enough. ur right

The three little bubbles show up again, then disappear. Richie thinks: wake up. Three bubbles again; lather, rinse, repeat. Then:

(212) 735-0307

Send one so I know you're you.

i asked u first

(212) 735-0307

I asked you second.

Richie isn't stupid. He's not. He knows he's not. He's just...not always cared about the future. He wants to be loved and he doesn't want to be abandoned and thinks those are normal things to be afraid of. But he's never been able to see himself in the future. Every milestone year comes and goes and all he can think to himself is that he can't believe he's made it this far. He never thought he would. This moment, like every moment before it, will eventually pass. But there's no way to know how you get out of it until you get out of it. No matter what he does, he won't be happy. Does it even matter what choices he makes, anymore?

Richie scrolls through his phone until he finds a photo from a few weeks ago. In the photo, he's sitting in a similar position to how he is now, his feet on his coffee table. Wearing the same pair of old navy sweatpants. In the photo, his cock is hard, hidden by his pants but the outline visible against the thin material. His thumb hovers over the photo. Once he sends it, he can't take it back. He feels very aware of his fingers. Self-conscious that his breathing has changed. Feels observed even though he's alone. He sends it.

He inhales a big breath and holds it. Closes his eyes and doesn't breathe and counts to ten, fifteen, twenty-one, twenty-two, and when his phone vibrates, he exhales. Opens his eyes. Opens the photo from Eddie.

And it's Eddie dick, sure enough. Richie takes in everything he can. Eddie has socks on, can see his left foot at the end of his bed. He's alone. His legs seem pale against a dark blue duvet cover. A throw blanket at the bottom of the bed. Eddie's foreskin is pulled down slightly, his thumb pressing into the tip. He's flushed red, and Richie looks and looks and looks. He feels his cheeks flush.

(212) 735-0307

I wish I could see you.

Richie closes his eyes. Breathes in through his nose. Breaks his own heart every single chance he gets. Slips his hand under the waistband and wraps his fingers around himself. Twice in a day. 

what would you do if i was there

(212) 735-0307

Maybe the same thing I'm doing now.

??

(212) 735-0307

God, you're lazy.

_  
  
_

(212) 735-0307

Touch myself.

(212) 735-0307

Can't stop thinking about the way you sucked me off.

i'd do it again. wanted to do it for longer.

(212) 735-0307

Mhm. I liked watching you.

liked when you fucked my face

(212) 735-0307

Yeah?

yeah

(212) 735-0307

I wish I could touch you.

wish you would

(212) 735-0307

You make me feel so good

(212) 735-0307

I'm close

tell me when

(212) 735-0307

When.

when

He hits send, drops his phone beside him, lets himself lean into it, the idea of Eddie touching himself on the other end of the phone, the other end of the country. The idea of Eddie thinking about Richie is enough to send him over the edge. He gets come all over his hand. The box of Kleenex on his coffee table is empty. He wipes his hand on the leg of his pants, should probably grimace at the idea but doesn’t. Vows to put on a load of laundry, once he gets on with it. With his other hand, he picks up his phone. 

(212) 735-0307

I didn't intend to do that when I messaged you.

i'll be in new york week after next

(212) 735-0307

Okay.

(212) 735-0307

Will you be staying in a hotel?

yeah

_  
  
  
_

Richie’s on Google Flights immediately, pays for an upgraded seat. As the payment processes, Eddie responds.

(212) 735-0307

When's your flight get in?

5:45 your time next thursday

(212) 735-0307  
I'll meet you for dinner at 8.

where?

(212) 735-0307

Narcissa at EV Standard.

(212) 735-0307

Just made a reservation.

meet you there

(212) 735-0307

Okay.

_  
  
_

He saves Eddie’s number into his phone, finally. He tries to imagine the weight it would have had, before going back to Derry. A normal phone number, tucked away in Richie’s phone. The power that would have held. A tether to Eddie Kaspbrak. Outloud, Richie says, “Two-one-two, seven-three-five.” Looks at his phone and reads, “Oh-three-oh-seven.” Blinks. Zero-three, zero-seven. March seventh. 

He doesn't put on a load of laundry. Instead, Richie pops two Trazadones into his mouth and swallows them dry. He falls asleep on top of the covers in his second bedroom, and doesn’t wake up for eleven hours. 

_  
  
  
_

Across the street from his apartment building is an empty lot, and the fence closest to the street is lined with blackberry brambles. The lot is only empty because it used to be a gas station. The strata for his building send emails about it a lot. In his mind, he adopts a Voice: it’s an eyesore! It could have retail space! Wouldn’t that be nice? Another Wholefoods within walking distance! 

Richie thinks: how many emails would I get about construction if it weren’t empty? Noise and work crews and cigarette butts on the sidewalk. 

Richie likes the empty lot, but also: he likes blackberries. Doesn’t care about what the rest of the block looks like if he gets a free snack a few times a year. Last summer, he’d taken a big metal bowl across the street with him and filled it. Ate the whole thing that afternoon. Shit funny for a couple days. He’d missed it, this year, having been on tour and then in Derry at the tail end of August. Wonders who picked them this year. He and Stan used to pick raspberries and blackberries all summer long, growing up. Do berries grow like that in Georgia? Richie doesn’t know what impact humidity has on the growth patterns of wild brambles. Bananas are technically berries. Bill and Eddie hated picking them. Eddie used to go on and on about getting pricked by them. It’s funny, Richie thinks now, what something simple like that can say about someone. Richie’s always reaching for things covered in thorns. He used to say to Eddie: It’s worth it! They taste good! They don’t cost anything. It doesn’t even hurt that bad. 

Eddie, still, would never pick them with Richie. No matter what Richie said. But later, they’d run them under the tap in the kitchen of Richie’s parents’ house, and Eddie would share them with him, sit at the table and dunk his hand into the big bowl. The tips of their fingers would turn purple with it. Richie’s hands would be covered in tiny stab wounds and scratches. Eddie would never be any worse for wear. 

Now, the bushes across the street from his place are starting to turn. Autumn rolls in, even in Los Angeles. It’s beginning to smell, dead leaves and rot and eventual renewal. Sour and sweet and like a lifetime of memories that Richie is having a harder and harder timing pulling apart. It’s all jumbled together, the pain of Stan never calling after he moved away, the first time they got drunk, how Mike threw up, and Richie stayed with him, and how Eddie, when he was allowed to sleep over at Richie’s, never slept on the floor like Bill or Ben did, but in Richie’s bed with him, even when they got too big and had to squish. 

Richie doesn’t know how to do anything that’s good for himself - not really. He doesn’t know how to tell, at the offset, if something will blow up in his face. His whole life, he’s been consistent at one thing, pushing too hard and then getting pushed back, beating a dead horse that never gave him anything back. 

The day before he’s set to fly to New York, he eats too many edibles and has a panic attack. When he was a kid and got too worked up, Stan talked him down. As an adult, Richie never called anyone. Didn’t have anyone to call. 

Stan took on everything for everyone, and never blinked about it. He knows it’s not that easy, that even for him, the reservoir eventually runs dry. But Richie’s still stoned out of his mind and his blood feels like it’s made of worms, wriggling under his skin and freaking him out, so he calls Stan anyway. 

“Hi, Richie,” Stan says on the other end, and something near Richie’s sternum settles. “I’m just driving. You’re on speaker.”

“Hi Stanny,” he says. “Am I saying hi to Patty, too?” Richie wants to meet her. He’s only heard a bit about her, but he knows she’s the one who found Stan, called 911 and sat with him, let Mike text her periodically and she answered, sweet as can be and even more understanding. Richie is so happy Stan has her. 

“No, she’s at home. I’m on my way to the store.”

“Ah. Maybe next time.” Richie wants to meet her, deeply. See the person Stan has spent his life with. “Can I stay on with you while you do your shopping?”

“Of course. How’re you doing, now that you’re home?”

“I’m really sorry I didn’t call earlier, though. I just figured.” Richie waves his hand around. Stan can’t see him. “You had enough going on.” 

“Don’t be sorry,” Stan says. “We’re talking now.” 

“Okay,” Richie says. Smiles. “Not sorry, then.”

“But you’re doing okay?”

Richie shrugs. “I don’t know. What’s the standard, after something like this?”

“Are you sleeping?”

“If I’m medicated,” Richie says. “But that’s not necessarily new. I haven’t slept well since. Well. I guess since the first time. How about you?”

Stan huffs. Richie misses him like Stan is a piece of him. Guesses that, kind of, he is. God. He’s lived his whole life like he’d lost an arm and a leg and didn’t even know. Just kept trying to walk through it. “I mean. I guess it’s okay. I’m at home. I get a few hours a day unsupervised. Lots of therapy. Lots of meds. I’ve traumatized my wife irreparably. So. Could be better.”

“Could be worse,” Richie says, and hears Stan huff again. Almost laughs, but not quite. It’s not very funny. Not even a little.

“Guess that’s true,” Stan says. 

Richie feels like it’s something cosmic about them, that they can fall into a conversation so smoothly after not speaking for the majority of their lives. And isn’t that something - how formative their friendships were, how foundational the lack of each other has been to Richie’s life. All he’s ever wanted was to be seen. To be grateful for things as they happen. He’s been so alone, a stranger to even himself, sometimes, and his life has been fine, all things considered, but it hasn’t been happy and it’s lacked love for so long. It’s funny, how badly he needed the people who knew him when he was young. He didn’t know. 

They talk for a while, Richie offering commentary on Stan’s grocery shopping. Wishes he was with him. He’s never known the intimacy of going to the store with someone who loves him. Richie’s loneliness has eclipsed his entire life. 

By the time they get off the phone, Stan’s spent a good ten minutes in his driveway. “I’ll let you go,” Richie says, deciding not to tell him about Eddie. He can tell him another time. He’s not high anymore, and Stan loves him, and still makes Richie laugh, still understands something fundamental about the way Richie is. 

“Will you call again?” Stan asks. 

“Sure. You can call me too, you know.”

“I don’t want to bother you.”

Richie smiles. “You’ve never bothered me a day in my life. I wish you would.” 

Stan laughs, soft, like he’s relieved and happy to talk to Richie. “Okay. I will.”

“Before you go,” Richie starts. Stops. “Can I tell you something?”

“Yeah,” Stan says, sober. “What is it?”

“I’m,” Richie inhales. “Gay.” 

“Oh,” Stan says, and then, “I thought it was going to be something bad.”

“Wow,” Richie says, and surprises himself by laughing. “Fuck you, dude.”

“Thank you for trusting me, Richie. I won’t say anything to anyone.”

Richie shrugs his shoulders. “Well. You can tell your wife.”

“Yeah?” Stan says. “I’m proud of you.”

“I’m proud of you too, Stan.” They’re quiet for a few seconds. “Now go kiss your wife and put your groceries away.” 

“I love you, Richie.”

Richie’s heart breaks and mends itself in a fraction of a second. “I love you too, Stan. I always did. Will until the cows freeze over”

“I know,” Stan says, and laughs. “I’ll call you next week.”

_  
  
_

Richie’s flight lands and his knee bounces as he waits for the plane to taxi. He wishes it were a bit later in the season - he doesn’t love New York the way some people seem too (too loud, too dirty) - but it’s beautiful in autumn. He imagines himself as a fucked up amalgamation of Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan, all their worst parts without any of the good outfits. Wishes he could spend a Tuesday walking through the MoMA with Eddie, doing Voices in every room. Thinks about the _Oklahoma_ soundtrack, about Harry and Sally and their knit sweaters. Doesn’t know why he knows the song. In his cab, he hums to himself: _whisper it over and over, don't you wish you’d go on forever?_

When Richie checks into his hotel room, the girl at the desk definitely recognizes him. She’s polite and professional, but her cheeks get more and more rosey as she processes his credit card and gives him his room key. He showers, perfunctory and only because he smells like the recycled air from the airplane. What’s he expecting? That they’ll go for one dinner and fuck all night? It’s not good for him, if Eddie’s going to stay here and stay with his wife and stay in his fucked up, tiny little life where he hates his job and his commute and whatever the fuck else he has going on. A weekly cooking class? A membership to a fucking crossfit gym? Fuck that. 

Richie’s life might be small, but his misery is all his own. It’s not because of anyone else, and that gives him a freedom that Eddie doesn’t have. Richie has the chance to make his own fate, no consequences to anyone else, no pain to anyone else. He’s all on his own, but it means he’s allowed to choose what he wants. He doesn’t want to hurt anymore. Even if it means he has to give up the ghost of his childhood yearning. Even if it means he has to scrounge up more courage than he ever has, really fucking dig for it, and have the guts to let the idea of loving Eddie go. 

He walks to the hotel where they’re having dinner, booked his hotel nearby because he’s not here for any reason other than seeing Eddie. Didn’t even tell Steve he was leaving LA. He gets there with a good fifteen minutes to spare. The girl working the host stand seats him early when he says he’s got a reservation, “Kaspbrak for eight o’clock.” She leads him to a table near the back. It’s a nice place - Richie’s never eaten here before - but it’s beautiful. Warm wood and low lighting and booths along the windows. It’s moody in a way that nice restaurants are, the same in every city, if a bit more magical just for being tucked in New York City. 

When they were kids, they ate at three places: the ice cream parlour, the pizza place that was owned by Bill’s second girlfriend’s dad, Richie can’t remember her name, and the diner that was just off the highway. He never could have imagined himself and Eddie in a place like this. She offers him a menu and asks if he wants sparkling or still water, and he asks for both in a moment of pure panic that he doesn’t know which Eddie prefers. He oscillates between nervously looking towards the door across the restaurant floor and half-reading the wine list. Should he order wine? Does Eddie like wine? White is too sweet for Richie’s taste, most of the time, and he’s picky about reds. Anything too dry gives him a headache before he can even reach buzzed. He likes Prosecco, though. Wonders about Eddie’s opinion on that, too. His knees bounce, but when he looks up, two minutes before eight, and there’s Eddie, his hair a bit windswept, and Richie thinks: Shit. 

Richie doesn’t stand from his seat, and Eddie doesn’t hesitate before sliding into his own across from Richie. “I’m not late, am I?” He says, in lieu of hello. 

“No,” Richie says. “I was just early.” 

“I thought I’d be waiting on you,” Eddie says, and something about that irks Richie. He’s already sensitive, has thinner skin than anyone else on earth, probably. Richie has spent twenty years being on time for his job. Has never been late once for something when it counted. It’s easy to forget: Eddie doesn’t really know him anymore. 

“I beat you to the Jade, too. You were, like, really late.” 

Eddie rolls his eyes. “Have you been here before?”

“No,” Richie says. Doesn’t know how to make small talk with normal people, let alone Eddie. He can do industry chit chat, but that’s different than speaking to someone who lives in the real world. And talking to Eddie is a different ball game, now that they’re alone. Richie feels so much pressure to be a certain way, but isn’t sure which way that is. What’s he meant to say? New York City has always made him feel melancholy. “It’s really nice,” he says, because it’s something to say. “Do you come here often?” He asks, because that’s something else. All he has to do is keep saying things that people would say in a script. He can do that. Eddie doesn’t really know him anymore, that’s true, but it also means that nothing Richie does can be considered out of character. It would almost be a relief, if it didn’t make Richie feel so sad. 

“No, but I’ve been a few times.” With my wife, he doesn’t say. Richie tries to imagine Eddie in his real life, not in this weird periphery where Richie exists in this space for a few hours. In all the places they overlap, even if just for a few moments. He scans the wine list. “Have you ordered anything to drink?”

Richie shakes his head. “Didn’t know if you’d want wine, or what.”

It takes them a few minutes of back and forth, but they agree on a bottle of red that suits them both. Turns out, Eddie knows lots about wine. 

Eddie asks about his flight and Richie asks about Eddie’s work day. After a glass, Richie chills out a bit. His knee stops bouncing. He tells Eddie about his phone call with Stan, and they fall into an easy sort of gossip about their friends. It’s easy enough. When their food comes, Richie realizes how hungry he is, hasn’t eaten anything other than a Clif bar he bought at LAX. At some point, Eddie’s foot presses into Richie’s ankle. Richie doesn’t pull his foot away, and neither does Eddie. A soft pressure, barely there but enough for Richie to wonder: What does it mean? 

He hasn’t done this song and dance in a long, long time. They talk about college. They talk about movies. Richie tells a story about how he accidentally ended up at a Scientology meeting because of Juliette Lewis. Eddie helps himself to a bit of Richie’s food without asking, right off his plate, and it makes Richie feel like his organs have turned into soup. He thinks: I’m fucking clinical. 

Eddie offers him a bite of his steak and Richie thinks: He’s flirting with me. 

If Eddie has moves, these are them. Modern American cuisine with low lighting and cozy decor. A relatively expensive bottle of wine. An ankle pressed to an ankle under a table. A lip caught between teeth after a laugh. Stolen bites of food. Richie wonders if it even matters that Richie is Richie - would Eddie be like this with anyone? Is he like this with his mother-wife? 

They clear their plates and eventually finish the wine. Despite it all, Richie is having a nice time. He’s self-conscious, sure, but he usually is, and it isn’t enough to ruin the slight rush he feels. What would he need to do, need to say, to have this forever? Is there anything he could do to get Eddie to just love him back?

It started to drizzle while they were in the restaurant, so Richie nods towards the valet outside and Eddie nods back, a small smile, and they get in a cab. 

“We have to make two stops,” Richie says, safe. “I’m at the Bowery. And then wherever he is.” Richie says to the driver. “Give him your address.”

Eddie says, “Just the one stop is fine.” Richie just nods. What would he even say? 

Eddie pays the driver - it’s only a seven minute drive, door to door. When they’re both on the street outside, Richie asks, “Do you want to have a drink at the bar?”

“Not particularly,” Eddie says. “But if you want to, we can.”

“Don’t you need to get home?” Richie asks. They haven’t talked about Myra all night. He’s kind of been waiting for it. For the other shoe to drop. It’s Richie’s fault, all of this. He opened this can of worms. Time for him to lie in it. 

“No,” Eddie says. “I’m not--” He stops. Sighs. “I’m not expected at home.” 

“Oh,” Richie says, because he doesn’t know what that means.

“Is that okay?” Eddie asks. 

Richie shrugs. Wishes he had brought a warmer coat. He’s just wearing a denim jacket. He doesn’t own the right clothing for the eastern seaboard anymore. Wishes he had a peacoat. “I didn’t have any expectations,” he says, because it’s true.

“I’d like to come upstairs,” Eddie says. 

In the elevator, it dawns on Richie that a month ago, he didn’t even remember that Eddie existed. Now, he’s ping ponged across America to commit a murder and get bombarded with his own lost memories and kiss a boy. How stupid. What kind of bullshit it’s been. If he believed in God, he’d ask: Is this a bit? 

He feels kind of awkward, but Eddie has...something about him as an adult that he never had a kid. A confidence that isn’t rooted in his anger or his neuroses, but just in that he’s the kind of person who seems to know what it’s like to be in his own skin. Richie really doesn’t know him at all, anymore. Richie barely feels like he’s even a real person, most days. He feels like he’s going to turn to dust if he doesn’t touch Eddie soon. The inside of the elevator is all mirror, and he catches Eddie’s eye. Eddie smiles at him, soft. As they walk the hallways towards Richie’s room, Eddie follows behind him and says to Richie’s back, “I’m really happy you’re here, Rich.”

“It’s not weird that I am?” He asks, as he taps his key card at the electric lock. He can feel Eddie behind him, not touching him yet, but decidedly in his space. He pushes inside when the door unlocks, little light flashing green. 

“It’s nice that you are,” Eddie says, following Richie into the hotel room. It’s pretty standard, a king bed in the middle, a bedside table at either side. Each with a lamp. One with a little clock that moonlights as a Bluetooth speaker. It emits a blue-tinged light. Richie’s already plugged his iPhone charger into it, two USB ports on its left side. 

Richie turns and takes in Eddie. He’s already shrugging out of his suit jacket, turned away slightly to hang it over the back of the chair pressed against the front of the small, hotel standard desk. He’s wearing a sweater over his dress shirt and tie, a heathered grey thing that probably costs more than what Richie paid for his first car. 

“Eddie,” Richie says, and flounders, because what the hell is he meant to do now?

“Hmm?” Eddie hums, turns to look at Richie. 

“Um,” Richie says. “I don’t--” He shakes his head. 

“Hey,” Eddie says, steps towards Richie. Into Richie’s space. He smells musky - almost smokey but just a bit sweet. Warm. His lips are a bit stained from the wine. Richie’s probably are, too. He slowly brings his left hand up, touches Richie’s elbow. Richie doesn’t flinch, but isn’t sure anyone’s touched him at all since Mike and Bev hugged him goodbye outside the Townhouse in Derry. 

Richie exhales and lets himself lean into it. 

“I, uh. I didn’t text you, last week, with like. Intentions? I guess? I just.”

Richie wishes he’d fall through the floor. “I know,” he says, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t know anything about what Eddie is thinking or feeling or what he means when he speaks. 

“You always did that to me,” Eddie says, and his voice is so different from when they were kids. His eyes are exactly the same. His mouth, too. “You made it so easy for me to get carried away.”

Richie makes a noise somewhere in his throat, or his chest, or maybe it comes from somewhere outside of him, he’s not sure, but it’s not a sound he thinks he’s ever made before. Almost a whimper, but not quite. Barely a breath. 

Eddie says, “I really missed you.”

“It’s only been like two and a half weeks.”

“It’s been twenty three years,” Eddie says. His grip on Richie’s elbow shifts up his arm. He’s closer, somehow, but Richie’s positive neither of them have moved. He doesn’t think he’s ever held this still. “It’s been forever.”

Either Richie moves or Eddie does, but their mouths are pressed together without Richie thinking anything between one thought and the next, Richie leaning down, Eddie pressing up, and he fists the lapel of Richie’s jean jacket and pushes and pulls at the same time, and Richie feels like he’s being lit on fire from the inside out. Eddie tastes like wine, and a bit like mint. He must have slipped one in his mouth, but Richie doesn’t remember seeing it. He’s been trying to memorize every detail of Eddie. Doesn’t know how he missed it. 

It’s a strange thing, kissing Eddie. Richie presses his hands to the side of Eddie’s face, careful of his cheek. It’s healed quickly, Richie thinks. He doesn’t know anything about medicine. Eddie still has one hand at Richie’s chest, squished between their bodies, the other settles at the back of Richie’s head, fingers moving into his hair. It’s only been a couple of weeks since Eddie left Richie in his bed at the Townhouse, but it’s like Richie actually forgot how it felt. He makes a humming noise into Eddie’s mouth, and Eddie moves his hands to push Richie’s jacket from his shoulders. 

“Fuck,” Eddie says against Richie’s lips. He can feel his breath on his face as he exhales. 

There are steps to this - moves that normal people make, bobs and weaves and a tempo that everyone else on earth seems to know. Everyone but Richie. He’s not sure what to do with his hands. He’s never been much of a dancer. Can’t really carry a tune. Eventually, they separate so Eddie can pull his sweater over his head in a single, deft movement. He loosens his tie and Richie unbuttons his own his shirt with shaky hands. He loves Eddie, really, even though he’s a stranger. He’s full of so much feeling, full to bursting, but it’s tangled, and his brain...doesn’t work the same way everyone else’s does, it’s broken, just a bit, maybe not beyond repair but definitely a fixer-upper, and his wires are all crossed. He has so much love for Eddie, for everything they lost and everything they never had a chance to gamble on, and what’s he supposed to do with it? How is he meant to parse through all that grief and nostalgia and longing? 

Eddie touches him like he wants him, and he’s firm but there’s something precious about it. He’s not patient, or slow, or even really that gentle, but it isn’t harsh either. His hards are solid. His chest is solid. He has strong shoulders and defined arms and he’s really very handsome, Richie thinks. Not that he ever wasn’t - even through puberty, Eddie was always better looking than Richie, tanned skin and freckles that blended into his blemishes - he was a cute kid and a charming teenager, if a bit strange, as a person, but he was always the brightest light in any room. He always lit up Richie’s life, even the darkest parts of it. 

And that’s probably why Richie keeps touching him, runs his hands over him and lets them climb over each other on the hotel bed, even though he knows it’s going to hurt him. That it will ache and ache and Richie will love him forever, but he knows: you can never love anything as much as something you miss.

And Richie has spent his entire fucking life _missing_. 

Life is so unfair, has been to him and Eddie both, and to Stan and Beverly and Mike and even Ben and Bill, but Richie feels like he’s spent the last twenty odd years asleep, or not even really alive, a shell of a shell of a person playing pretend at knowing how the world works. Fucking. One hundred ugly, battered Russian nesting dolls with his thirteen year old self hidden away. He’s spent his entire life afraid. Afraid of fucking everything. He doesn’t understand anything. 

Eddie’s hand is on Richie’s cock, Richie’s hand’s half heartedly shoved inside Eddie’s pants, the button and fly undone but not pulled down enough to give him room to make a real effort at it, and Richie wishes he would die, right now, before this comes around to bite him. He’ll take everything he can get, just the once, even if it happens over and over again, any time could be the last time, but he knows he’s always going to do this, make this choice, take what he can get from Eddie for as long as he can, no matter the consequences. 

Even a bad excuse is better than none, and when Richie’s mouth is full of Eddie’s tongue, it’s hard to care at all that his excuses aren’t really good enough to justify the harm he’s doing. 

Richie’s close, his balls are tight and his cock is leaking enough to be nearly embarrassing. Eddie’s nipping at his throat, his adam’s apple, and when he says, “I want to fuck you,” it’s breathless, airy and raspy and something switches in Richie’s brain. It’s like being doused with cold water. 

Richie says, “I-” and stutters. His eyes suddenly sting. He turns his head away, and says, “Wait.”

Eddie stills, but it’s slow, first his mouth stops against Richie’s neck and then his hand stops moving, letting go of Richie’s dick. He’s propped up on one hand above Richie, but he pulls back a bit, and Richie shuts his eyes as tight as he can. “I-” Eddie says. And then, “Should I not have said that? It’s okay if you don’t want-” and Richie shakes his head, not sure what he’s saying no to.

Eddie leans back a bit, knees tucked under him, and Richie opens his eyes to catch him pulling away. His face is blank, a mask, and if there was any emotion there, Richie’s missed it. Richie lifts himself up a bit, leans on his elbows and watches Eddie watch him. “I-” Richie starts. “I’m sorry.” 

“What for?” Eddie asks, and Richie isn’t sure. Isn’t sure which offense of his is the worst, what he should repent for first.

He shrugs. “I don’t know,” he starts. Sighs. “Everything, maybe?”

“I’m going to sit up,” Eddie says, and moves slowly, like Richie’s a wild animal. Like he’ll flee if he’s too scared. Richie supposes that’s not wrong. Richie pulls his briefs back up. The least he can do for himself is not have this conversation with his cock out. 

Richie sits up too, and they end up side by side, feet off the side of the bed. Richie props his elbows on his knees and leans his head into his hands. “Did I do something wrong?” Eddie asks. Richie isn’t sure how to answer that. Yes? Of course? You’re cheating on your wife? No? You’re perfect? It’s all my fault? I don’t know how to be normal and have an affair like everyone else manages to? 

Richie shakes his head, and Eddie’s hand finds his back. It’s the softest touch Richie’s maybe ever felt. Barely there. He doesn’t move, just rest his palm to Richie’s middle spine and stays there. “I just,” Richie says. Sighs. “I don’t think we should do this.”

“Oh,” Eddie says, and it makes him take his hand away, so Richie guesses it was both the wrong and the right thing to say. A miss is as good as a mile. He may as well lean into it. 

“It’s not-” Richie says, then lifts his head to look at the side of Eddie’s face. Eddie’s looking at his own hands in his lap. “Do you remember how we used to pick blackberries in the summer?”

Richie watches Eddie’s brow furrow. Watches him mull it over and try to understand. Can tell that he doesn’t get it. And maybe that’s the problem with all of this, with his relationships in general and Richie in particular: he doesn’t know how to say what he means. 

“I just,” Richie starts. “I was always the one get scratched up by the brambles, you know?” Eddie sighs beside him. “And, look,” Richie pushes on. “It’s fine. You’re. Eddie. It’s been hard for me.”

“Clown stuff?” Eddie asks. Richie lifts his shoulders, a half hearted shrug. Love and war. Misery and company. 

“Yeah,” he says. “And everything else. I have uh, a lot of issues.” 

“So does everyone,” Eddie says, and Richie shakes his head. 

“It’s been hard for me to be alone. And it’s been.” He breathes in and out. “Just. Such a long time.” 

“What can I do?” Eddie asks, and the saddest part is that Richie’s just not really sure. He doesn’t know how to ask for what he wants or how to be a person who can actually have it. What happens if you don’t deserve the things you want? What happens when you’ve got all that you deserve and are still left wanting? 

“I don’t know who you want me to be.” He says, which is a part of it. 

“What? Richie, I want you to be yourself.” 

Eddie’s hand touches Richie’s back again, but pulls away after a split second. Like it burns. Like it hurts. Richie’s just not sure who it’s hurting more. “I don't know what you want me to say.” 

“Say what you mean,” Eddie says, eyebrows furrowed. 

“I don’t,” Richie says. Swallows. “Mean anything.” 

Eddie brings one of his knees up to the bed, turns towards Richie, one foot still on the floor, the other a weird bent triangle on the bed. His hip flexibility is pretty good. “Rich,” he starts, then tilts his head to look at him. “I’m not sure I’ve been very fair to you.”

Richie nods. It’s true even if he doesn’t want to think poorly of Eddie. 

“I didn’t remember how to talk to you,” Eddie says. “I’m not sure I ever did, when it counted.”

“We don’t really know each other anymore,” Richie says, and Eddie nods.

“Yeah,” he says. “I realized, when I was driving back to New York. I realized we’ve been apart much longer than we were ever together.” 

Tears finally well in Richie’s eyes. “That makes me so sad.” He sniffles.

“Me too,” Eddie says. “It feels impossible. It’s like I was asleep for more than half my life.”

Richie gets that. Feels like he hasn’t even been breathing. He says, “It’s like existing in a state of apnea,” and what he means is: he’s trying to catch his breath but the nightmare has lasted so long that he can’t get his lungs to relax. “And it’s hurting me. This,” he gestures between them. “Whatever’s going on. It’s hurting me. It hurts.” He wipes the tears from his eyes. “I didn’t remember you and I still didn’t know what to do without you,” and Richie wishes it were a lie, would do anything for it to be untrue, but it isn’t. 

“I’m sorry,” Eddie says, and Richie sighs. He feels resigned to it. How stupid. To want to have his cake and devour Eddie at the same time. How silly to think that loving a man he barely knew off of memory alone would be enough to make Richie feel happy. How naive to think that love could fix anything, in the end. Maybe for other people, it would work. He knows there are lives and stories and times where something good does work, but it could never work for Richie.

“Me too,” Richie says. “You know, I trust you so much, but I’m not sure if you deserve it. Not yet. Not anymore. And it’s not - it’s not about you, even, really, but it’s like. I’m a fucking idiot and I just loved you without knowing it and it _hurt_ , right? Love, not… not past tense.”

Eddie just watches him, and Richie - Richie would do anything to know what he’s thinking. What he feels. He knows Eddie’s not heartless - knows he’s not just trying to fuck Richie and forget to call him. He knows it’s all jumbled up for him, too. But. Eddie never picked the blackberries, and Richie always, always did. And he always shared with Eddie. It’s enough of a pattern to become a habit. Richie doesn’t want a half-assed kind of happiness, a broken or cruel kind of love. He wants a fucking storybook kind of joy, full to bursting, the very brink of the limit of human emotion. He knows that no one is happy all the time and that it’s hard to share your life with someone - but that’s the point, isn’t it? That it’s work and it hurts and sometimes people lose each other. But, God, isn’t it beautiful while it lasts? 

“I told Myra,” Eddie says, and Richie looks at him dead in the eyes. “Not that we slept together, although I know I should. I just don’t want to hurt her worse than not loving her already does. Isn’t that cruel enough? That I not only wasted my own life but I’ve wasted hers too?” 

“Eds,” Richie says, because, Jesus, that fucking sucks, it all sucks. Life, it seems, for them, most of the time, sucks. 

“But I did tell her that I couldn’t be with her, that it was complicated and sad and that I was sorry, but I can’t help that I’m not - not who she thought, who I thought I was.” 

“Oh,” Richie says.

And Eddie says, “I really do want to know you, now. And I understand if we can’t - we can play this however you want, however you’re comfortable. But you have to tell me what you want me to do, because I’d do it, I’d do anything. And if that’s stupid I’m sorry, but I really would, Richie. It’s this huge fucking burning thing inside me, and I know I’m fucked up and I have issues and I have to get a divorce and I’ll be paying allimony for the rest of my life, but I don’t care about that shit, I don’t care about anything the way I care about wanting to be happy. I want to be happy so fucking bad.”

Richie lets a small smile break across his face, because, Jesus Christ, what’s the point of hiding it? He’s got so few things that make him feel like his chest is full of fireflies, like life could still have some tricks up its sleeve. How beautiful, to have Eddie here, to get to see an Eddie who seems hopeful, who wants to try for something precious and good and warm. 

“Eddie?”

“Yeah?”

“I really do love you. Warts and all, you know? And - I have. A lot of warts myself and some of them, they’re like. Really gnarly. I’m like. Supremely depressive. You gotta know.”

“But?”

Richie shrugs, and a laugh bursts out of his chest. “Maybe we can just take it day by day? Some of them are gonna be bad and hard and scary. I’m a fucking headcase, and I’ve been. Really lonely. But, you know. I do want to be better.” 

“Day by day,” Eddie says, like he’s trying to see how it feels. He straightens up a bit, sternum forward and he smiles at Richie this huge, gigantic smile that makes Richie’s head flutter. “I’d like to try that.”

“I do have to tell you,” Richie says, smiling. He bites his lip. “I really did like when you choked me.”

Eddie flushes, blushes like the universe is shifting around him to fit some new, huge truth. Maybe it is. Richie’s own universe feels a little left of centered. A little off kilter. Eddie laughs, just a small thing, a little chuckle, and Richie’s smile gets a bit bigger. “Okay,” Eddie says. “I don’t know what to say to that.”

“Well, I don’t know, dude, I’ve just been more vulnerable than I ever have in my life, maybe let me know if it was weird or good.”

“Oh, my God, Richie,” he says, and laughs again. “I - yeah. It was good. I’d never, uh, done anything like that. But. It. Worked for me, yeah.”

“Maybe we can do it again, sometime?”

Eddie nods. “I trust you, Richie. Maybe we can take it slow, but yeah. We can do that. We can do pretty much whatever you want.”

“You gonna make a spreadsheet?” Richie asks, and Eddie shoves at him, and Richie shoves back, and they grapple against each other for a few seconds until Eddie’s half on top of Richie again, his hands pinned under Eddie's weight, one above his head and one at his side. And isn’t that just the long and the short of it: Richie has always let Eddie win. Squished in a hammock, socks against his cheek. Anything to see Eddie smile, anything to be close to him. How precious, to have someone love you in a way that makes you laugh. For Richie, he thinks: this is it - the purest form of love, the most concentrated version of it, a boy who calls you an idiot and smiles as he does. 

When Eddie kisses him, it’s so soft and so gentle and so different from any other kiss they’ve shared, a whole new way to touch each other, with tenderness and gentleness and without regret or fear. And Richie thinks he would do anything for Eddie, with Eddie, go anywhere and put up with all his weird shit and help him carry all his baggage if it means this softness would just stay put. 

Eddie says, “Maybe I will,” when he pulls back. “But I’m going to need your help.” 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

>  **warnings** : richie uses medication irresponsibly, smokes weed too much, has a thc induced panic attack, drinks alcohol without thinking about how fucked up it can make you. he's super depressed because i'm super depressed, and his mental state is not! good! he thinks thoughts in a way that could set you off, if you're also depressive. there is reference to stan's suicide (attempt). eddie cheats on his wife, chokes richie during sex without them talking about it (richie instigates it, but still). eddie is terrible at communicating, even at the end, but he does try, and richie _really_ tries. also: i challenged myself to throw as many malaphors into this as possible, because i think it's fun to imagine internal language, but it's honestly kind of annoying. 
> 
> otherwise, i wrote most of this to a few songs, on repeat for two weeks, including: how i get myself killed by indigo de souza, easy enough by pinegrove, and two seasons by slow hollows. please wear a mask and please vote and please come say hi to me on twitter @decinq_


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